Serious Programming Only

July 25, 2019 1:07 PM

Comic Code is a monospaced font (suitable for programming) designed after a popular typeface that you may have heard of.
posted by schmod (30 comments total)

Early reviews ain't so hot
posted by COBRA! at 1:10 PM on July 25, 2019 [4 favorites]

Yikes. Maybe it's just me, but that comic hasn't aged well.
posted by schmod at 1:11 PM on July 25, 2019 [33 favorites]

Apparently they want money for this.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:12 PM on July 25, 2019 [4 favorites]

I wonder if the double meaning (code as in programming and this) was intended.
posted by exogenous at 1:15 PM on July 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

Does it have Haskell ligatures, though? Given that one of the originators of Haskell (Simon Peyton-Jones) sets all his slides in Comic Sans, there’s probably a natural synergy there.
posted by acb at 1:16 PM on July 25, 2019 [5 favorites]

Like a Jerry Springer Show spinoff.
posted by artdrectr at 1:16 PM on July 25, 2019

Once you zoom out it looks like a million other monospace coding sans.
posted by paper chromatographologist at 1:17 PM on July 25, 2019

I don't think this looks terrible. I'd be interested in seeing full code blocks in it. A lot of popular coding fonts have similar cartoonish features, like loopy lowercase l's and k's, or e's with the horizontal line on a slant (e.g. Monofur or Fantasque Sans).

Comic Sans is mostly bad because it was put to terrible use and became a cliche, not so much because there's something intrinsically wrong with it. It's not a good font, but the ire came from people using it to write passive-aggressive warnings about popping popcorn in the office microwave.
posted by painquale at 1:23 PM on July 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

Speaking as someone who has bad eyesight and deals with code: The code sample looks pretty good, and is much more readable than a lot of fonts designed for coding. (Although I'd have to use it in my own tweaked setup before I'd say I'd be happy with it for day-to-day work.)

I get the Comic Sans hate, but it's a reflexive behavior. Don't witch hunt your fonts.
posted by ardgedee at 1:24 PM on July 25, 2019 [7 favorites]

Possible open-source alternative
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 1:29 PM on July 25, 2019 [5 favorites]

My favorite Comic Sans alternative is Bubblegum Sans, available thru Google Fonts, and Comic Neue. Both typefaces are free, too!
posted by Foci for Analysis at 1:31 PM on July 25, 2019 [6 favorites]

Given that one of the originators of Haskell (Simon Peyton-Jones) sets all his slides in Comic Sans...

On a reddit thread on this topic, the top comment is "Maybe he just doesn't care about types."
posted by sjswitzer at 1:48 PM on July 25, 2019 [12 favorites]

Yikes. Maybe it's just me, but that comic hasn't aged well.

Yeah, Neo-Nazi beatings aren't so funny when they are a real possibility in your life, and not for font-related reasons.
posted by benzenedream at 1:56 PM on July 25, 2019

My favorite Comic Sans alternative is Bubblegum Sans

My favourite coding font is Lucida Console, though when I have limited space I like... uh... I'll have to update when I get home.
posted by clawsoon at 1:59 PM on July 25, 2019

Most of that strip hasn't aged well. The panel where Roast Beef is interrupted in the act of detailing a model car and his face immediately contorts with rage remains an incredible character study.
posted by phooky at 2:01 PM on July 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

Some people need to get a better hobby. Who has time to cut a typeface that people are going to actively hate?
posted by adamrice at 2:05 PM on July 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

I miss Nazism being extinct; we didn't realise it at the time, but that was an almost edenic age of innocence.
posted by acb at 2:53 PM on July 25, 2019 [3 favorites]

I sometimes use Comicraft's Code Monkey, just for fun.
posted by kram175 at 3:37 PM on July 25, 2019 [1 favorite]

but the ire came from people using it to write passive-aggressive warnings about popping popcorn in the office microwave

i have no idea what you're talking about
posted by cortex at 4:08 PM on July 25, 2019 [4 favorites]

I don't know if it carries over to this takeoff of it, but a genuine virtue of Comic Sans is that it's easier for people with dyslexia than many other fonts.
posted by Candleman at 4:13 PM on July 25, 2019

Maybe they could give this a fresh coat of paint.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 5:09 PM on July 25, 2019

I don't know if it carries over to this takeoff of it, but a genuine virtue of Comic Sans is that it's easier for people with dyslexia than many other fonts.

I can't vouch for how readable Dyslexie font is for dyslexics but my hyperlexic ass finds it pretty comfortable.
posted by taquito sunrise at 6:29 PM on July 25, 2019

I changed my VSCode font to 18px Comic Sans for about two minutes. Worst two minutes of my life.
posted by bendy at 8:40 PM on July 25, 2019

Just came here to say I gave the fantasque-sans font a try today and I'm really digging it. Very readable but with a playful flair that breaks up the monotony of the monospace fonts I'm used to working with. I found myself trudging through some very tedious SQL today and it honestly made the experience slightly less soul-numbing.

Thanks for the suggestion They sucked his brains out!
posted by treepour at 8:42 PM on July 25, 2019

Monaco for life!
posted by vitout at 3:35 AM on July 26, 2019

Part of the joke is that this is actually a pretty good typeface.

I still find it completely wild that 2019 is a golden age for monospaced fonts.
posted by schmod at 6:51 AM on July 26, 2019 [1 favorite]

thanks to a web search this inspired, I just found Programming Fonts Test Drive and my life is changed.
posted by Zed at 4:06 PM on July 26, 2019 [5 favorites]

For my money, Meslo LG (mostly a clone of Apple's Menlo) comes close to everything I want, except ligatures.

I switched to Fira Code for a day, but I'm going back. Not a fan of the 'g'.
posted by Zed at 10:40 AM on July 27, 2019

Oh yeah, I was going to update with the font I use on my smaller screen at home. Consolas. I tried a bunch of others, but that one worked best for me.
posted by clawsoon at 2:29 PM on July 27, 2019

Thanks Zed, I just switched my terminal to Hasklig and it feels like ligature Christmas morning. (It's an extension of Source Code Pro, which I'd been using for years, so it was an easy decision.)
posted by mubba at 4:15 PM on July 27, 2019